Jon Kyl, a workhorse among the Senate's showhorses, dies at 84
- Arizona's quiet power broker, Jon Kyl, dies at 84, the anti-McCain who actually got stuff done.
- 15 years of behind-the-scenes grunt work on water rights—the most boring, important thing you'll ever read about.
- Came out of retirement in 2018 to babysit Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation, then bailed after four months. 'There's more to life than the Senate,' he said, proving he was one of the few who meant it.
- Time called him one of the world's 100 most influential people. The average voter in his own state probably couldn't pick him out of a lineup.
- Obituary notes he was 'willing to negotiate in good faith.' In today's Senate, that's apparently grounds for a sainthood hearing.
Brief Summary
The Senate has lost its cloakroom hero: Jon Kyl, the Arizona Republican who spent 18 years in the chamber doing actual legislative grunt work while his colleague John McCain hogged every camera in the Western Hemisphere, has died at 84. Time magazine dubbed him 'the Operator'—not because of slick PR, but because he operated the machinery of government while others were busy polishing their own statues. He rose to minority whip, helped shape tax policy and judicial confirmations, and spent 15 years—a biblical span of patience—hammering out a tribal water settlement that mattered more to Arizona's future than any floor speech ever delivered. After retiring, he was hauled back for a four-month stint in 2018 to shepherd Brett Kavanaugh through his confirmation circus, then promptly resigned with the withering observation that 'there is more to life than being in the United States Senate.' The man literally had to be begged to return to a job most politicians would murder their own grandmothers to keep.
Why This Matters
Kyl's death marks the extinguishing of a once-common species: the legislator who measured success in provisions passed, not SoundCloud clips. For the average reader, his relevance lies in reminding you that while the Senate runs on hot air and performative outrage, the actual plumbing—tax codes, water rights, judicial confirmations—is still maintained by people nobody's ever heard of. His biggest public act in recent memory was getting Kavanaugh confirmed, which means he arguably had more direct impact on the Supreme Court's current conservative tilt than a thousand midterm campaign ads. But the deeper moral here is grimmer: Kyl was considered a relic precisely because he did the job as it was meant to be done. His passing is a eulogy for the art of the possible, buried under an avalanche of scandal-baiting and committee-circuit theater. When the flashlight fades, the cloakroom gets darker—and the showhorses, as always, will keep on prancing.